It's up to me

Friday, May 18, 2007

Forget about celebrating the little things; my inner child was having a kicking-and-screaming, beating-arms-and-legs-on-the-floor tantrum. Why? Because in order to succeed, you actually have to work at it.

Can you believe it? To be a writer, you actually have to write. And write well. Oh, and to get published you might want to send out a query letter or two. Or two hundred. And even after all that, you might have to send out even more queries, or revise like mad so that someone will want to publish your masterpiece.

Despite all this hard work crap, I love what I do. I think I've just spent so much time with my words lately that, like a house guest who stays for a month instead of a weekend, we need to take a little break from each other. You know, the way people with other jobs do: leave it at the office and have relaxing evenings and weekends.

Seems that working all the time can slow you down. The ideas don't have a chance to develop and dance around in the garden before they're forced onto the page. Deadlines hang like long shadows over the desktop, blocking out thoughts of dinner or going over to the park to check out the swings.

It hit me last night that my muse doesn't have a chance if she's on call 24/7. In fact, I think she's hiding just beyond the neighbour's fence, playing with the spirit of Noah (he was put down last week, may he rest in peace).

So I'm declaring this beautiful Canadian long weekend as downtime. And I plan on enjoying it despite the anticipated twitching and nervous glances at the dark computer screen.